Students take a step back in time aboard a tall ship

Thursday

May 3, 2007 at 2:00 AM

By Margaret Carroll-Bergman I&M Staff Writer

It was a typical gray spring day on the island last Friday when students from the Nantucket Lighthouse School toured the tall ship Alabama tied up at the end of Straight Wharf. Rain, wind and the gloom of the fog did not dampen the spirits of the kindergarten through fifth grade students who stood at the helm, read the compass, and learned about the history of the 90-foot gaff-rigged fore and aft schooner built by the Pensacola Ship Building Co. in 1926.

A century and a half ago, Nantucket Harbor was forested with the masts of wooden sailing ships similar to the Alabama, and many of the Lighthouse School students were well-versed in the island’s maritime history. In fact, many of the children had ancestors who sailed on similar vessels.

The Alabama, as well as another tall ship, the Shenandoah, are owned by Robert Douglas, owner of the Black Dog Tavern on Martha’s Vineyard. Douglas bought the Alabama in 1966 and had it completely rebuilt over a three-year period, starting in 1995. Douglas’ sons – Morgan, Jamie and Robert Jr. – run The Black Dog Tall Ships sailing program for Martha’s Vineyard fifth graders, where the Vineyard kids spend a week living and working aboard the floating classroom.

Lighthouse School fifth-grade student Lucy Holland took the wind and rain in stride as she stood on deck and examined the compass and tried to get her bearings.

“This is a real nice boat,” said Holland, who enjoys sailing on catamarans and sunfishes. “I’ve been on boats many times. I am not exactly a land person.”

Although the sails weren’t on board and the lines stashed in the double bunks below, the students got a feel for shipboard life nearly 100 years ago as they climbed down the ladder to below decks where brothers Jamie and Robert were roasting a turkey in the galley. Double-wick kerosene lamps swayed from the overhead beams while the boat rocked. Robert Douglas opened up a door in the dining-room table to reveal a secret ice box. Some of the students wanted to lie in the bunks, but were too wet from the rain. While the students knew about tides and currents and sailing with a fair current, they did not know that television had not been invented 100 years ago.

Photo by Jim Powers Morgan Douglas, captain of the tall ship Alabama, speaks to a group of Lighthouse School students Friday while the ship was docked at Straight Wharf.

More photos

“Before you were born, people lived on boats like this and traveled to Nantucket,” said Jamie Douglas. “There was no Internet and no television.”

The children gasped in disbelief.

“How many of you know what a lightship is?” asked Captain Morgan Douglas, at 29 the youngest of the three brothers, yet the one in charge aboard the Alabama. The oldest brother Robert, 35, is the CEO of the Black Dog Tall Ships and Jamie, 34, is the first mate.

All hands went up in the air.

“The Alabama was built as a fishing schooner, but was used specifically by bar pilots in Mobile, Alabama,” said Douglas. “Bar pilots helped visiting ships navigate the gulf, which like Nantucket, has a lot of shoals. The bar pilots would go out, year-round, even on days like this to do work.”

“You used to be able to catch whales between Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard,” continued Douglas.

Yet, the history lesson was interrupted by modern thinking.

“Yes, they killed so many,” said second grader Sawyer Philips, who then went on to explain how the cobblestones on Main Street were originally used as ballast aboard whaling ships, yet unloaded so the boats could float over the sandbars.

“What’s up with the Black Dog?” asked fourth-grader Riley Fusaro of the white flag with the familiar Black Dog T-shirt logo flying from one of the halyards, a Martha’s Vineyard icon but seemingly out of place on Nantucket since its owners opened a retail shop on the island last year.

Douglas told the story of Black Dog, their family dog, the inspiration behind the Black Dog Tavern. Although the dog is now dead, it lives on as a symbol for the two schooners, the tavern, and the family’s T-shirt business.

Beck Barsanti, Curtis Maltby, Harry Rutherford and Sam Freeman at the helm of the tall ship Alabama Friday. More photos

Kindergartner Schuyler Coffin, dressed in a green slicker and rain boots, looked around the close quarters of the fo’c’sle and asked, “What if there is a fire?”

Jamie Douglas explained that there were fire-fighting chemicals on the ship and that the doors closed to shut off oxygen, which feeds fire.

Coffin, still a bit uneasy, asked, “If you have a messy bunk, do you get kicked off?”

“No, we won’t kick you off,” said Jamie Douglas, “You’ll only have to make your bunk.”

Reach Margaret Carroll-Bergman at mbergman@inkym.com

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